I think Tony has misunderstood the purpose of the hex repair on the SOS input shafts. It was never intended to be better - or even as good as - the original design. It's not. It's simply a way to get new life from worn out parts. When your shaft and disk are worn out, your options are limited. You can find a good used shaft, but that's very difficult. After all these years, one that's only half worn out is about as good as you will find anywhere. The wear accelerates as they get loose, so the last half of the splines will disappear much faster than the first half. You can buy a new shaft from New Holland, IF they still have your model available. But the price of the some of the later DDC shafts will exceed the value of the tractor. You can have your old shaft welded up and re-cut to the original spline configuration and then buy a new original style disk. But, the knowledge of metallurgy and heat treat processes and welding necessary to do one correctly is available at very, very few machine shops. If they just build it up with weld and remachine the splines, they will have disturbed the steel to the point that the shaft will snap off right behind where they welded it. I've seen several previously repaired shafts snap off, and those that didn't break usually wore off the new splines in record time because they weren't hardened properly. If you can find someone who has the knowledge and facilities to repair the shaft properly, the cost would likely be up there with New Holland's prices for a new shaft.
By taking the minimum cut on the worn out shaft to get a .820" hex, you avoid the heat of welding and the integrity of the shaft won't be compromised. The shaft still has it's original hardness, and believe me it's hard. You'll eat up some carbide tooling getting it cut down to size.
We've been doing this hex modification to the worn out SOS shafts for 9+ years. I don't know exactly how many, but I figure somewhere between 80 and 90 sets have been sent out. The number of people who have reported a failure during that time - ZERO. I don't know how long they will last. I just know that if any of those sets have worn out or broken, I haven't heard about it. It's going to take a long time before that hex wears enough to slip, and the these antique tractors are mostly hobby/chore tractors. They aren't used hard like they were back in the day when they were state of the art.
There will always be those critics who know more than everyone else regardless of the topic. I put the process out there for anyone to use if they want to try it. If they don't like it, they don't have to use it. If they have a better idea, more power to them. This modification is just one option that's been PROVEN to work well.
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